The Arrival
by refracted
Summary: "You don't have to be always trying to be perfect, you know." "Why?" "Because you already are." A tale of twists and turns, falling and being saved.


THE **ARRIVAL**

_It's always darkest before the dawn._

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><p>I<p>

You meet Uchiha Sasuke on your first time on Santa Monica pier.

Previously, the location had just been a view from internet pictures, but only with him do you now understand the atmosphere of being somewhere so spectacular.

You have always wanted to save people. And when you look at him, you want to so much explicably more.

He has the dullest eyes you have ever seen, and even though they are pitch black, they look more of a shadowed and cloudy grey, especially in the moonlight on the pier. His skin is pale – much too pale, you think. His expression is withered as if he has lived through a thousand years, and his jaw is pulled back taut with unlimited things unsaid. His cheekbones are as sharp as blades, but even they add the disgruntled and tired edge to his face. His stygian hair is an artistic disaster and though his physique is lean and admirable, he crumples forward with the weight that you can imagine he carries on his shoulders.

He looks at you emptily, but you can spot the little sparkling stars of wonder that lie behind. You have always been the type to read people, after all. You just don't choose to analyse him entirely yet.

You decide to sit on the shore of Santa Monica pier quietly, thinking, waiting. Not too often do you have people lingering on the sand at two in the morning, and you suppose he knows that too.

You say nothing, and he says nothing. You just stay together as the waves roll and crush onto the beach and the breeze becomes a welcoming refreshment. You know that at one time or another with more of these visits to Santa Monica pier, he will be ready to say something. As of present, you won't force him.

He's probably more broken than you are – though before you thought that to be unlikely.

You stay together until your anguish has dispersed and when he doesn't look so ruined anymore. The first rays of light creep through the horizon at four in the morning, and this marks a new day to start anew.

You've never really believed that, with waking up and having everything okay again, because everything _isn't _okay. Everything is muddled and messy with splattered and shattered emotions. You want to be able to turn back time and on other occasions, fast forward to the end.

However, this strange, peculiar and striking boy makes you believe that it's okay to _not _be okay. He doesn't notice as you pull your knees to your chin and tremble with suspended tears and unforgotten nightmares.

_No, _you think. _He cannot be as broken as me – I will not allow him to be._

_I _will _save him._

II

And as you cry and sizzle and explode, you miss how just beside you on Santa Monica pier in the opening minutes of the day, Uchiha Sasuke is concealing his tears with a tragic smirk that puts plane wrecks, runaway brides and Dear John letters to shame – all at once.

III

You have been falling for years now, but not once have you wished for someone to catch you.

Uchiha Sasuke ends up attending the same high school as you do – Santa Monica High School. He's friends with a group of cheery and slack jawed people who are all polar opposites of him. But, it's not his solitude or lack of sociability that confronts you. It's his strange habit of wearing wool sweaters, even in the hottest of summers.

All the wool sweaters are long-sleeved.

Yes, you must save Uchiha Sasuke.

Why? You don't know why. You just _know._

Maybe it's because it's the only thing that saves your life. Maybe you just won't admit that without the redemption of fulfilling other people's lives, you'd be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

However, you're still falling.

And one day, you will hit the ground, whether you save him or not.

IV

You also observe how Sasuke acts with robotic perfection – automatic and mindless.

He always carries a certain coldness around him, and you can't help but to wonder what happened to him to make him so detached, so frigid, so lifeless.

Everything that he does is excellent because of his intuitive aptitude. Everything that he touches breaks, because he doesn't allow himself to mend them. Everything that he says is chosen decisively, as if he's afraid to say the wrong thing, or to say too much. Everything that he does supports the walls that reach up to infinity around him.

You can tell that people believe he's arrogant, that he has a firm superiority complex in which he's above everyone else.

But you know, as he reaches with what you slowly come to feel as a golden touch, he is trying to find a way to get up again, just to be the same level as everyone else.

Just to be enough.

V

And at home, when you are left in bed battered and beaten by your parents who have long become faceless and tyrannous, you think of Uchiha Sasuke as you close your eyes, succumbing to unconsciousness.

You think of him because he is a reason to open your eyes in the morning.

VI

When you are absent from school for a suspicious amount of time, Sasuke chooses to confront you, to say his cryptic and ambiguous words – though they mean more than anyone can imagine.

"You're hiding something," he says, and touches the sleeves of your own wool jumper.

You look at him pointedly, but afraid. "So are you."

He smirks as he rolls up his sleeves and turns his arms upward so that his wrists can be seen. The soft skin that lies there is scarred by the marks left from the faint slicing of a razorblade.

You can feel the tears prickling at your eyes again. You smile even though you have never shown anyone what you are about to. You reel your sleeves this time, but you don't need to move your arms or do anything, for that matter.

The sickening bruises are punctual, and Sasuke seems to trail his eyes over all of the blue and black blotches for a while before looking back up at you.

He opens and closes his mouth time and time again, until: "I'm here." _We'll get through this. If you ever need me, you know where to find me – Santa Monica pier, when everyone's asleep, but we're so awake._

The two words couldn't have been more fitting.

VII

And one day, that time comes, when things do get too much.

You run faster than you ever have before out of your haunting house, through the quiet streets that seem to grab onto you and then escape to the sanctuary that is Santa Monica pier. This time you're arguably late – it is three in the morning, not your usual two in the morning, but he is there, waiting.

You collapse next to him, and you don't even care when the waves crawl up the beach and soak your hair. You're sobbing into the sand and you're a complete and utter _mess_.

"I'm sorry," you mutter disappointedly, that you've shown your weakness. You never want people to be disturbed by how you're feeling, because in your mind, it doesn't matter.

He stays silent.

You gather yourself as you heave into a sitting position, staring out to the sparkling ocean. The tears won't dry as easily as they had on the first night, but at this moment in time, you really _don't _have to be okay – more than ever.

You turn to him, your expression cataclysmic, but his impassive. He's trying to be strong. Too strong.

So you lean forward and touch his shoulder to capture his attention. "You don't have to be always trying to be perfect, you know," you murmur, because you know that's all he ever does.

He looks at you with a glance that asks _why_? because that's all he's ever known. Perfection.

You laugh, and though the sound is torn and suffocated, you see the ends of his lips twitch upwards.

You let your head drop onto his shoulder as you answer. "Because you already are, Sasuke." _You already are so perfect, so beautiful, so special. You are Sasuke, and that is enough. Nobody can ever change that._

VIII

Despite the bonding of that particular early morning, you find yourself pulled away from the world by a force so unstoppable that his image no longer brings any solace.

Ironically enough, it is not the abuse that you have received over the years or the dramatic emotional turmoil that you have suffered from. In fact, it is not quite self-inflicted or committed by the actions of others. The force is rather… natural.

You don't attend school anymore as much as you did, not because you don't bother, but because you can't. You don't even tell Sasuke what's going on.

Even if he's the one person who deserves (and needs) to hear the truth.

IX

However, one day, when you are walking home, you overhear Sasuke's discovery.

Sasuke's discovery of what will take you away from him.

He has gone to your house, and though your parents in reality are less than friendly, they create a gentle front towards strangers. You can hear the conversation well and clear, but you just don't want to _believe it._

"Where has Sakura been recently, Mr. and Mrs. Haruno?" Sasuke asks politely.

For once, you wish that your parents were as snide and secretive as they always were.

At the question, your mother looks at your father as if she is about to laugh. Despite the fact they both are aware of your condition, their compassion and sustenance is lacking. After your father nods, your mother answers the question in a tone so scornful that would make you believe that she saw your situation as a circus stunt.

"What do you mean, dear boy? Where she's always been. The hospital." The once considerate façade is thrown away and replaced by bitter condescension and revulsion.

Nonetheless, you don't even acknowledge the frostiness that has conquered your parents or the very harshness of the reply. You don't even think of running away or picking other options, because once Sasuke's eyes freeze into cold rock and his hands turn into fists, you know that he has become dissociated.

The only thing he can say once you collect the heart to walk up to the site is:

"What's going on?"

X

You make possibly the worst choice in the next following seconds.

You brush past his undone stance as if he's not there at all, and drift into the shadows of your house. You can hear the door slam as your parents walk after you, no doubt prepared to perform punishment as you have decided to socialise yourself with someone else.

This is the first time, however, where you are certain that you should receive it.

XI

Later in the night, when the digital clock beside your bed has ticked to two in the morning and the blood on your face has desiccated, you exit your house once again.

You tread forward like a person awaiting execution as you make your way to Santa Monica pier.

You know he won't be waiting.

This assumption is proven as truth once you arrive to the beach, and it is as dead as the starless sky. You walk towards where the waves break, and then further, further into the water. The water slowly changes from knee to waist and finally, neck-deep… but you don't notice.

The chilling cold of the ocean consumes you and you feel yourself fading. You return to the digressive thoughts of wanting to sleep forever. You don't have a reason to wake up anymore in the morning. So you close your eyes, and you let yourself finally hit the ground.

You are sure that the wilting from your degenerative neuron disease will accompany your drowning; however even in this state do you identify the musky and _so warm _smell that is Uchiha Sasuke as he wraps his arms around you six feet below the surface.

XII

He doesn't wait to corner you when you wake up.

You find yourself in his room and you realise that his house is quiet, much too quiet. He has pictures plastered all around the room – all of which contain characters that look relative to him. However, he also has another repetitive pattern. One newspaper article, copied over and over again, makes wallpaper for his entire room.

Nonetheless, your view is blocked by his piercing and… furious? midnight eyes. You have never seen him more sullen and conflicted ever before. And for that, you hate yourself. You _hate _yourself. You always have.

"You're dying." He states apathetically, his voice not at all parallel to the emotions in his eyes. He says it as if he's known all along, but at the same time, he sounds so disbelieving – like he doesn't want you to die ever. You never thought your life mattered.

You can't do anything but nod. You are so ashamed, so frightened, so _weakened._

He appears to cross over his thoughts for a moment. You can tell he's fighting with himself, deciding whether or not he should be angry or patient. You would much prefer him to be angry.

Instead, he swallows any doubts and speaks with a very blunt and direct tone, though you can hear the depth that lies underneath. The demons. "And I've been dead."

You are shocked for a moment before you actually realise what the newspaper articles all around you and Sasuke mean. They symbolise his loneliness, his depression and every negative entity within him, because all of them report on a family lost in a car crash. Sasuke's family. But of course, Sasuke was the survivor. And you suppose that for him, it is a curse.

The words echo mercilessly in your mind. _And I've been dead. I've been dead. Been dead. Dead. Dead. Dead._

You feel yourself paralysed. You cannot say anything to Sasuke as you peer up to him, your eyes crystallising. You are so pained that this _beautiful _boy has ended up as damaged as you are – even if you don't want to believe it, because it's true, it's all _true. _You cannot save him. He has to be the one to save you.

You know you can come to an agreement that both you and Sasuke don't want to believe anything now.

In your state of numbness, Sasuke cradles you into his arms. His presence is a spreading fire that smothers all of your concerns. He is the immaculate euthanasia, sweeping you away from the long run and everything that will come.

He whispers into your hair, his voice gentle, yet determined. "You're always doing everything for everyone else, Sakura. So this time, I will do something for you. I will not let you fall to my ground." _I will not let you become the non-existing person that I have built myself into. I will maintain your emotion, your life and your heart._

The thoughts in your head betray the silence.

XIII

Your waning becomes adamant.

Soon, you find it difficult to commit to the simplest of movements. Your ability to talk wavers and your sight too frequently dims in and out. All of your senses are diminishing and you know that more than anything, you will miss the distinction of Sasuke – how he felt, how he smelt, how he spoke, and how he looked.

The darkness gradually overwhelms the light that he once provided.

But as you lie on your impending deathbed in the hospital, you can still spot how he spends days and nights on end asleep in the seat next to you, hoping that when he wakes up again, you'll be alive like how you were.

XIV

You eavesdrop on a conversation in the intensive care unit that you are held in which makes you believe that you have begun hallucinating.

Sasuke is there, as always, perched on the side of your bed. But this time, his best friend, Uzumaki Naruto, is with him. Naruto, you could tell, was so, so _yellow. _So bright. You hoped that his luminosity would replace yours in respective to Sasuke when you were gone.

His voice is cautious and tender when he speaks, as if he was afraid that if he said too much to Sasuke, the boy would snap at him. He leans his hand onto Sasuke's shoulder, looking at him with such sad, sympathetic but trying-to-be empathetic eyes.

"Sasuke, let go." The words are short and conclusive, but Sasuke responds as if he didn't hear. You know entirely what he means, though, and you couldn't have agreed with anything more than you do now. The guilt of holding Sasuke down has been long quenching you.

Naruto shakes his friend's shoulder. He still doesn't react. He sighs, and says the one thing that he is sure will break Sasuke, but perhaps, change him.

He alters his tone into something more commanding, but something more desperate. A plea. "Sasuke, you have to accept that one day she's not going to _wake up. _She won't have the strength anymore, Sasuke. Please. I hate seeing you like this. Why won't you—"

"Naruto. Get out." Sasuke cuts him off with splitting edge. His eyes turn malevolent and by his violent gaze, you wouldn't have ever guessed that the sun-kissed blonde was his best friend.

Still, Naruto is persistent. "Sasuke—"

_Let go…_

"Get. Out."

At the surging anger in Sasuke's voice, Naruto accepts that he won't be able to get much out of him. He sighs again, but this time with relenting as he exists the room, however not before he takes one more look at his best friend who is dismantling in front of his eyes.

Sasuke, sensing the stare cast upon him, glances at Naruto. His answering look is fleeting, but it is certain.

"I'm not going to let go, Naruto," he says so quietly that Naruto can feel the anguish that lies underneath.

And because the blonde cannot bear hearing anything more – he leaves without a word.

XV

Yet, the next day, Uzumaki Naruto arrives at the same intensive care unit, sitting straight next to Uchiha Sasuke.

He's wearing an entirely different expression this time – he's no longer sceptical, but hopeful. He wears a smile though his eyes are brimming with tears.

Naruto nudges Sasuke with his shoulder. "She'll be okay, ne, Sasuke? She'll be okay." His voice is soft with a new strategy. He will be with him every step of the way.

Sasuke just nods, placated. "She'll be okay." _She has to be okay._

The mantra is one that convinces them of something they will never believe.

XVI

This time, it's not okay to not be okay.

XVII

The morning in which you fall asleep for the last time is one that is glazed with the sunshine of spring.

As always, Sasuke is beside you, but he is not awake. He has been dragged into unconsciousness, and you suppose for once that his lethargy is a gift.

You never would have wanted him to watch you die.

A part of you wants to wake him up, to tell him to let go just as his best friend had, and to tell him that the most important achievement he could ever make would be just being _happy_… without you.

But you know you won't. It might be selfish, disappearing without a trace and having the first thing he sees when he does wake up to be your motionless body.

However, this action is for the best. You slip yourself under the covers of the bed though now, even the slenderest of movements is hard to perform. Well, everything was difficult now. Breathing itself was no longer natural, and instead it felt like inhaling smoke, shuddering and agonizing.

Your heart rate begins to accelerate dangerously as your sight blurs and the doctors rush in, yelling orders to the nurses who accompany them. Amongst all of the chaos and havoc, Sasuke opens his eyes. You begin to shake and tremble and disassemble but he stays still. Too still, you think, but perfect.

You smile at him even though it's so damn _painful _to pull your lips into such a shape. The torment flashes through his pitch black eyes as you stretch your hand towards him. He makes no effort to grab your hand because he is frozen. Frozen in shock. Frozen in hurt. Frozen in loss.

You sputter the words. You can barely speak anymore. "S-S-Sa-suke-ke, I l-lo-ve y-y-you." _And be happy. God, please be happy. _

And as your heart rate begins to slow to the heavens, everything fades away from you in the distance. Everything fades away apart from Uchiha Sasuke, who radiates in all of the white.

You watch his eyes dull to the dead grey that you first saw when you met him as you die.

XVIII

The sweet hereafter does not come to retrieve you when you become deceased.

As an alternative, you are waiting in a limbo between life and death, watching the Earth that you have just left. As the days past by and you loom for your own verdict, you only watch Sasuke. You could have chosen to watch your friends or your family, but you know none of them will be affected to the degree that he is. He doesn't leave the intensive care unit for weeks, though nobody is there.

You catch Naruto standing by the door of the hospital room on some days, but he seems to swallow back his words, because he doesn't know what to say, he is afraid to. It takes him an entire month before he is able to approach Sasuke, his expression solidified.

"Sasuke," he whispers in dread, "you can't keep doing this."

Said boy does nothing but give him a glance that says, _and what else am I going to do? _The bitterness in his unsaid reply snaps Naruto.

"To _live_, maybe, Sasuke? Just maybe."

Sasuke's eyes narrow dangerously. "I don't think you can even understand," he mutters harshly, perhaps more harshly than he intended.

Naruto's own ocean eyes flash with the anger of a storm. "You know what, Sasuke? I _do _know what you're going through. And don't say I fucking don't, because I watched my own two parents shred away in hospital _just like _Sakura did. I understand it feels like the end of the world for you, but you need to stop thinking about yourself. You need to stop acting like the lonesome boy who just wants to throw pity parties because Sasuke, I'm sorry, _she's dead_." _You will never know how sorry I am, Sasuke. _

The Uchiha escapes from his frozen form and whirls around, striking Naruto straight in the jaw. The hit echoes through the hospital room. The blow appears as if it slides down Naruto's face, melting and gradual.

Nonetheless, he continues in the face of his best friend who is breathing heavily, his body convulsing. "She's gone, Sasuke. She's gone. And she wouldn't want you to be living like this."

Sasuke doesn't even look up to him when he hisses another insult. "Then what do you want me to do, Naruto? If you're so _brilliant – _enlighten me."

It is at that point that a bittersweet smile pours onto Naruto's lips, and the Uzumaki closes his eyes, inhaling. He answers the question in a tone like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Go to Santa Monica pier. Two in the morning. Fall into the ocean. If you're not meant to be alive, Sasuke, then… you damn well will not wake up."

He opens his eyes again and exhales with a grin on his face. "And if you're meant to be alive, you'll see me when you do." _I'll prove to you that you'll wake up again._

XIX

The day I received my ruling was the day that Sasuke arrived at Santa Monica pier at two in the morning.

I watched him for the last minutes in limbo, feeling a significant resemblance to the time I attempted to commit suicide with what he was doing now. He walked towards the water with nothing in him. He may as well have been dead, I thought sadly, with all of the defeat he carried.

The last thing he ever said before he was swallowed by the waters was:

"I'll see you soon, Sakura."

But somehow, as I fell into my own rapture, I knew he wouldn't.

XX

Uchiha Sasuke spent fifty-one hours in the ocean. He never drowned. He floated. The only hours he was ever awake were between two and four in the morning, and even at those times, he could still see the sparkling city landscape that was Santa Monica calling him back, no matter how much in the distance it may have been.

He was found back on the coast of Santa Monica at five in the morning, pale as a sheet of paper with his hair disoriented and strength retracted. He had just fallen asleep, but when he opened his bloodshot eyes to the twilight lit sky, he knew that he was awake and _alive. _He saw the sunrise over the horizon and it felt like the numerous arrivals of light that he had shared with Sakura.

But once the extraordinary bleach of yellow that was Uzumaki Naruto came into view, smiling and crying, Uchiha Sasuke knew that this time – and for many more coming – he would be now sharing them with his best friend.

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><p>Inspired by 1 Litre of Tears.<p>

Reviews are very much appreciated.


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